Dyche praises his players’ mentality

Chris Boden

Clarets boss Sean Dyche praised his players’ mentality after reacting to a late Rotherham equaliser going straight up the other end of the pitch to claim a winning goal at the New York Stadium.

Andre Gray gave Burnley an early lead on his return to the side, but Grant Ward thumped a 25-yarder past Tom Heaton with 15 minutes to play.

I think we deserved to win, but they kept fighting, and pressed harder than I’ve seen them this season

Sean Dyche

Sam Vokes restored the Clarets’ lead six minutes later with the decider, and Dyche said: “There’s got to be credit to them, sometimes the hardest fight is the one everyone expects you to win, and it played out a little bit like that.

“I think we deserved to win, but they kept fighting, and pressed harder than I’ve seen them this season, and they played well.

“They never stopped giving it everything to try and win, and got a worldly out of the blue, and all of a sudden it was a case of ‘what’s gone on there?’, they had some breakaways but Tom only made one save in the first half.

“But I’m delighted with the mentality of the players, it rubs off on each other.

“We have improvements to make, we can get fitter - Joey has come in tonight and obviously needs more fitness, but he did very well.

“I think there’s more to come from the strike partnership, even though they both scored a goal.

“You’ve seen it the last couple of weeks, the madness of then Championship, I thought we we terrific last week and lost, and I thought we were okay and worked very hard tonight, and were solid, but not as good as last week, and we win.

“Thats the challenge of the Championship, finding different ways to win, and we’ve done it again.”

Rotherham’s equaliser was a bolt from the blue, despite their improved showing after the break, and Dyche added: “It was a great finish from their lad, we’ve hit the bar, had a couple of maybes, and you do wonder at 1-0 - the law of One More Chance, as I call it, where they are due a chance, and they didn’t really have one, and the lad smashes it in the corner.

“But the mentality of this group, the way they work, no disappointments, we just get on with it, ‘okay, that’s happened, that’s done, we move forward and get on with the game’, and that’s what we did.

“It was a very good goal. The keeper made a good save and Vokesy was on the bits. They are good habits from the things we work on in training.

“They made it very hard, but we played out of the press well, and kind of softened their press, and that is some of the maturation from last season, the growth mentally, and that calmness to keep playing.

“I was pleased with that but there is a lot more to come as a football unit. The habits are very good, the basics, the will, the demand, the structure, but we can be more productive in and around the box, and we’ll work on that on the training pitch and when we’re playing.”

Striker Rouwen Hennings was absent as his wife went into labour in the afternoon, and Dyche explained: “I’ve got no more news, he came with us and Billy Mercer kindly drove him back after the contractions started.

“Family first with me, we turned him around, got straight back and hopefully all is well.”